The UK’s former chief
climate diplomat John Ashton addresses students from Bedford School Sixth Form
in a TEDx talk.

The
speech was called Climate Change: why you should be angry, and why anger isn’t
enough. In
it Ashton argues that young people must find their “collective voice as a generation”
and play an active role in politics in a “purposeful, strategic and organized”
manner.

You
can read an extract below – or download the full speech at the bottom of
this page.

I
want to give you two illustrations of where we are right now on climate
change.

The
first is from an official assessment, published by our own government last
year, of the risks posed by climate change to the British national
interest. In that document there is a passage that reads – I swear to you,
this is word for word:

Although
the melting of Arctic sea ice could have long-term implications for the
UK’s climate and may damage the Arctic’s biodiversity, one potential
positive outcome could be the opening up of new shipping routes to Asia
and the Pacific. The conversation turned to the geopolitical implications
of the melting ice in the Arctic.

Asked
to give his opinion, people around the table hanging on his every word,
the security official declared that as far as he could see the

implications were positive. And that position goes something like this.

Climate
change may be changing the Earth’s geography at a scale and pace
unprecedented in history. Climate change may be the ruin of us. But, give
a whistle, let’s look on the bright side.

I’ve
been in the climate business for 15 years. I have to say I do get a little
angry, in a good-natured way.

What
makes me angry is not actually the Eric Idle thing. What makes me angry is
that we can deal with climate change.

We
can deal with it but we aren’t dealing with it.

You
have more of your futures ahead of you than I do. You are more exposed to
the consequences of failing to deal with climate change. If I’m angry
about that failure, you have a lot more to be angry about.

Climate change and
global warming can be to a great extent reduced by planting trees. Sustainable
Green Initiative plants fruit trees to combat global warming and simultaneously
fight hunger, poverty and rural migration.

The simplest way to
combat climate change is to plant trees:
Trees breathe in Carbon DiOxide and through the process of photo-synthesis
create food for themselves and breathe out Oxygen.

At
Sustainable Green Initiative, we plant trees to help the fight against climate
change and also hunger, poverty and rural migration. By planting a tree you
help in doing your bit to mitigate your carbon footprint and carry on the fight
against hunger, poverty and climate change.